


The Ones Left Behind

by InsaneTrollLogic



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Murder Road Trip, Post-Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Post-Season/Series 01, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 12:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15948965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneTrollLogic/pseuds/InsaneTrollLogic
Summary: The universe is contagious.





	The Ones Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sad I missed this show when it was originally airing. But here is the post-season one hiatus fic I would have written if I was watching. Only lightly proofed because RL is kind of nuts right now and hardcore edits are the worst.

Todd only knew Dirk for a week.

It was a crazy, eye-opening week, both the worst and the best of his life. He’d hated Dirk for most of it, but there’d been swings in the complete opposite direction when he’d looked at Dirk with crushing fondness, something so deep he felt he could choke on it. He wonders sometimes, how this would have been different if the pendulum had landed on the loathing side.

Todd thinks, that if he still hated Dirk, he probably wouldn’t be in this situation.

The situation being hanging by a rope tied to his ankles under a bridge as a small group of people who look like they might have pigs’ heads hoping that Farah rescues him before they finish a blood sacrifice.

Stuff like this didn’t used to _happen_ before he met Dirk Gently. He used to be able to go pick up some groceries without taking a detour that land him right in the middle of whateverthefuck this pigman cult is. But there’s been a… how did Dirk put this: A certain acceleration of strange in his life.

His back itches. He rotates precariously by his ankles, crushingly certain that he’ll fall if he tries to move abruptly.

 _Go ahead and scratch_ , a voice in his head whispers and Todd reaches up slowly.

The rope snaps.

* * *

Amanda doesn’t answer any of Todd’s calls when he’s in the hospital which only spikes his anxiety higher. Farah visits as soon as she’s allowed with the news that Dirk is gone. Todd tells her about his last phone call with his sister, ignoring the pit that forms in his stomach when Farah says, “That can’t be a coincidence.”

Farah doesn’t want to leave him alone, but Todd pleads with her to go, to start the investigation into what happened to his sister, what happened to Dirk. He promises he’ll find her when he’s discharged, but he’s read enough true crime to know that the first twenty four hours after a disappearance are critical.

Todd loses _three_ days of what could have been a start to his search in the hospital. There are tests, bloodwork, and more tests. He has two more attacks, IVs turning into nooses, his hands melting when he tries to wash them with tap water turned to acid.

When he’s finally discharged clutching a script for pills that feels more like a penance than a prognosis, he takes the bus straight to the pharmacy. The pharmacist frowns at the order and tells him it might be more than a day before it can be filled.

He calls Amanda but she doesn’t pick up.

Farah’s call is two sentences and ten seconds long. _They’re watching you. Be careful._

Todd scans the street, expecting to find a shady black car, or maybe some men with guns waiting to question him.

What he sees instead is a notice that the bar across the street has their open mic night today.

And maybe he hasn’t played in public since the Mexican Funeral broke up. Maybe his sister and his best friend are missing and he wishes he was with Farah looking for them. But he has the strangest feeling that this is how it’s supposed to go.

* * *

 

Todd hits the ground and everyone freezes.

One of the pig men snorts. A second raises a machete and yeah, this figures. This seems like it would be the way that Todd Brotzman dies.

“You were meant to be a sacrifice,” one of the pigmen rumbles.

Lurches up at him, right as the pigman’s head explodes, covering Todd’s face with fleck of pork.

“What the—” he mumbles and catches sight of a dark shape wielding a gun just in time to duck before it’s fired.

“Thanks by the way,” the new guy says as he makes his way past Todd mowing through the remainder of the cult. “I’d been waiting for a distraction.”

And this guy. Todd _knows_ this guy. He was the guy who fixed Patrick Springs’s machine. The friend of the terrifying assassin who decided to not kill Dirk.

He’s looking worse for the wear, smeared with the blood of a half dozen pig men, holding an honest to god pitchfork in one hand and in the other, a lit torch. Behind him, two people are on fire, hands waving and oh God Todd wishes this was a hallucination.

“I know you,” he says. “You're the universe's machine fixing guy.”

“Ken,” he answers.  “And you're Dirk Gently's friend.”

One of the burning pig men collapses behind him. The screaming is more just pained gasps.

“Todd,” Todd affirms. “How you been, man?”

Ken lets out a short bark of laughter. “I think I accidentally became a serial killer.”

* * *

 

He plays an old Mexican Funeral song. One of the few that he could get away with playing without a band around him. They used to break it out on tour near the end of the set, Todd alone in front of the crowd while their bassist made their drummer pound three successive water bottles before he passed out from exertion and dehydration. It’s not quite a ballad, but it’s as close as the Mexican Funeral ever got.

It’s weird to play again. He’d dented his guitar when he bashed it into a wall and the strings reverberate differently against his fingers. His voice cracks on the second line and he finds himself subbing words, but there’s no one here who’d know the difference. The crowd isn’t lively, but Todd’s played at enough open mic nights to know it never is. He gets a fairly genuine round of applause when he finishes and slides into one of the empty booths, his fingers shaking, wondering why he’s here instead of out looking for his sister or Dirk.

A girl slips into the booth across from him. Pink hair, a nose ring and a torn leather jacket. The kind of person who actually used to show up at the Funeral’s shows. Todd blinks at her, wondering if he’d been recognized.

“This is going to sound really weird,” the girl says. “But a couple days ago someone gave me a hundred dollars to get a note to ‘an angry hobbit with a guitar.’”

“Hobbit?”

She raises an eyebrow and it reminds him so much of Amanda he almost cries. Instead he takes the note and says, “I guess that’s fair.”

She doesn’t leave, sits and waits as she watches. Todd almost wants to warn her off, but he supposes she wants to see this through. He unfolds the note carefully. It’s not long, but the handwriting is instantly familiar. Amanda.

 _I’m safe,_ it says. _You don’t need to look for me._

 _Find Dirk,_ it says.

He looks up to meet the girl’s eyes. “You read this?”

“Like you wouldn’t,” she says, leaning forward. “Who’s Dirk?”

There’s an itch under his skin. He’s half afraid it’s an attack coming and his script won’t be ready until tomorrow. After a second, the night’s emcee calls a name and the girl looks up.

Todd raises an eyebrow at her. “You should go. You know it could be your big break.”

She looks back at him, torn, and then walks up to the stage and grabs the microphone.

Todd leaves before she’s finished, the itch under his skin steadily growing worse.

* * *

 

The first car they come by has the keys still in the ignition. Ken looks unsurprised by the turn of events but does a double take when Todd clamors into the seat next to him. They drive east decisively though neither of them are quite sure where the certainty comes from.

No talking, really. Ken seems unbothered when Todd switches on the radio and rattles the half full bottle of pills in his pockets. They drive longer than seems like it should be possible before the car coasts to a gentle stop. Ken frowns at it and then looks at the empty road.

“What are you waiting for?” Todd asks.

“Why do you think I know how this works?” Ken throws up his hand. “When I was with Bart, we stopped, and then she… killed people and then we could leave again. And ever since.”

He cuts himself off, his jaw clenching and Todd recognizes something wild in his eyes. It’s the same thing he’d felt towards the end of the Patrick Springs case. The idea that the whole world was connected. That he was absolutely in the place he was meant to be.

Todd pushes the car door open.

He hasn’t been out of the city in years. The air is crisp against his skin, the breeze carrying a sharp undercurrent almost electric that somehow smells like rain. There’s green as far as the eye can see.

There’s a soft noise. When he looks back, Ken’s laying across the seat so he can look at Todd through the open passenger door.

“You gonna run?” Ken asks. “Because that would probably be a good call.”

Four hours in the car with an admitted serial killer and Todd thinks that should probably take that advice. But there’s an odd sensation building in his stomach. A pull almost. He takes the pill bottle out of his pocket. He’s overdue for his next dose and whatever’s building in his stomach could be a precursor to an attack.

But there’s a whisper in his head that tells him not to take it. He’s not sure if that’s because he deserves whatever pain is coming or something different.

“We can’t just sit here,” Todd says.

Ken shrugs. “Where else we going to go?”

The pull is stronger now. He puts the pills back into his pockets. “I think I know.”

* * *

 

 _Hunches_ , Dirk had called it.

 _A detective who doesn’t use clues_ , Todd countered, _insane._

Todd is not a holistic detective.

But…

Todd’s seen it. The completely bizarre web of the universe. The way that it would pull Dirk exact where it was supposed to go.

Todd spends three weeks taking his new pills and detailing a precise timeline about what he knows about Dirk’s abduction, how Farah found the Rowdy Three’s van in the middle of an empty field but Amanda was okay enough to get him a message. He thinks of the man from the CIA that rattled Dirk so badly and the look of utter surprise when Todd called him a friend.

He spends those three weeks cooped up in his still trashed apartments, trying to be a detective and piece all of the clues together until the pressure builds in his head and he wants to scream from the stress of it all.

He needs some air. It’ll clear his head. Get him on the right path. He hasn’t had a real lead since the last time he followed a whim and walked into open mic night.

He grabs his bottles of pills and a jacket.

A walk, that’s all.

* * *

 

They’re picked up as hitchhikers after two hours of walking. Ken kills the driver when they hit a truck stop and Todd is horrified until he looks in the back of the truck and finds two dead bodies and what looks like two metric tons of cocaine.

Ken leaves the driver’s body where it is and nobody blinks when the two of them stumble into the adjacent bar and order some drinks.

A lot of drinks.

“D’ya think—” Beer dribbles down the right side of Ken’s chin, mingling with the blood from the truck driver he hadn’t bothered to clean off. “—That the universe is contagious.”

“Two months ago, I would have told you it was bullshit. And it’s still bullshit.”  Todd holds his drink better than Ken, old habits from the Mexican Funeral when they’d played half their shows sloshed. He’d had to cut back in recent years, unable to afford the extra expense after Amanda got sick, but the ability has never quite gone away. “But I also think it’s real.”

Ken slumps back. “I thought she was crazy.”

“Dirk definitely was,” Todd replies. “But he was also right.”

“Those guys in tanks took her,” Ken stares at the bottom of his drink. “Left me and took her instead. And the next morning I woke up with a voice whispering in my head and I knew I was supposed to kill this guy.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing! I’m not a psychopath.” Ken grimaces. “Only the next day, I saw the guy—the same guy—on the news. He shot three people at a mall outside of Seattle.”

“Everything’s connected,” Todd says. 

“That’s what Bart always said. She said the universe told her who to kill and when those guys in the black vans took her.”

“Blackwing,” Todd supplies.

“When those Blackwing guys took her the universe decided I was its newest serial murderer.”

“That sucks,” Todd says.

“Right?” Ken chokes. “She kidnapped me and now I’m some kind of universal hitman and that’s…”

“Insane,” Todd finishes. “So how does it work? How do you even decide where to go?”

Ken stares at him. “What are you talking about? For the last few days I’ve been following _you_.”

* * *

 

Todd walks aimlessly rather than take one of his usual routes. He lets his feet guide him, veering off his habitual paths into areas of the city he’s never been to before.

On the two hour walk, he manages to find and return four missing cats. One of the owners gives him one hundred and fifty dollars. Outside the house of the third one, he finds an Amtrak ticket to Oregon.

He gets on the train.

* * *

 

“When did it start for you?” Ken asks.

They’ve followed Todd’s hunches for the past two weeks. Sometimes it ends with Ken killing people. Other times it ends up as cases. The kind of thing that Dirk would have loved. With witches, a fairy circle and an honest to God pyrokinetic. Ken’s more methodical that Todd could ever be taking down case notes, trying to force things into logic.

Todd tries following his gut and stumbles headlong into situations that Ken has to kill his way out of and at the end of the case, it’s a seventy-thirty split on if it was intuition or logic that get them out.

“Right after Dirk disappeared, I think,” Todd says. “I didn’t really notice for the first couple weeks.

“It was the same for me,” Ken says. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. He’s a half-beat behind the song on the radio. “Do you think that means they’re dead?”

Panic seizes Todd.

Because he’s considered it before. Of course he has. That Dirk is dead, Amanda is on the run, and Farah’s too paranoid to investigate with a partner until she knows neither of them is being followed.

The air thickens suddenly and each breath he takes feels like sludge, filling up his mouth. He tries to answer, but he can’t. Instead he claws at the door, making choked gasps.

Ken notices after a second, swerving to the shoulder so he can park. “Todd!” he shouts. “Dude, talk to me!”

Todd manages to grab his pill bottle from his jacket, but his hands are shaking too badly to get past the child proof lid. Ken, thankfully, decodes it, popping open the vial. “How many?” he asks.

Todd holds up two fingers. Ken shakes them out and presses them into Todd’s hand. Todd swallows them down among air that tastes like mud and stares ahead until the start to work.

When his breathing finally normalizes, Ken says, “What the hell was that!”

“Nerve disease,” Todd says, exhausted. “I’ve, um, skipped a couple doses of my maintenance meds.”

“ _Why_?” Ken ask. “That looked _terrible._ ”

Todd hugs his arms to his chest and swallows his first response. _I deserve this_.

He says, “Universe gets quiet when I take them. And I keep thinking. What if I miss something? What if I miss the clue that pointed us to Dirk?”

“I’ve watched you work,” Ken says skeptically. “There aren’t clues. Just wild moments of happenstance.”

“It’s holistic,” Todd says.

“R _i_ ght.”

They sit watching the cars go by for a few minutes, listening to the soft music on the radio.

“Ken,” Todd says. “I have a friend who’s been looking into Dirk and Bart’s case. She was pretty sure someone was following me.”

“What’s your point?”

Todd points to the road. “I’ve seen that car that just passed us. Multiple times.”

Recognition dawns slowly over Ken’s face. “Then I think it might be time to give them a taste of their own medicine.”

They pull back onto the highway.

* * *

 

“I don’t think they're dead,” Todd says hours later. “Dirk always told me that the universe made sure he got where he needed to be.”

“And the universe decided he and Bart should be in _Blackwing_? How does that make sense?”

“Because we’re gonna find Blackwing and we’re gonna _burn it down_.”

A smile curls around Ken’s lips. “That a hunch?”

“It’s a promise,” Todd says.

And they drive.


End file.
